-- That the Church of Rome Maintains Idolatry
That the Church of Rome Maintains Idolatry If anyone is not yet persuaded that the Church of Rome is guilty of idolatry, let him consider the following reasons.
First, Babylon is a worshiper of idols.
Rome is Babylon.
Therefore, Rome is a worshiper of idols.
The major premise is evident, for Babylon is called the "mother of fornications" (Revelation 17:5) and the "dwelling place of devils"
(Revelation 18:2) because of her idolatries. The minor is likewise clear, for Babylon is described as "that great city which reigns over the kings of the earth" (Revelation 17:18)—that is, Rome, which in John's day was the seat of the empire.
It is answered by some that John speaks of heathen Rome before it received the gospel. I reply that this is false. For Rome, under the emperors, did not "make the kings of the earth drink of the wine of her fornications," since it left every nation to its own religion and devotions. It was the common error of the heathen to approve all religions and to admit the sects of all philosophers. Themistius, the philosopher, sought to persuade the emperor Valens that "the variety of sects is pleasing to God, so long as He is worshiped in various ways." Leo likewise said of Rome: "This city, not knowing the Author of her advancement, when she ruled almost all nations, gave herself to the errors of all nations, and thought she had attained great height in religion when she refused no falsehood." Thus, pagan Rome drank from the cup of the nations but did not cause the nations to drink from hers. Therefore, the passage in Revelation refers to Rome as governed by the pope.
Again, in Revelation 13:1, there appears a beast rising from the sea with seven heads and ten horns—which, by common agreement among interpreters, represents the Roman Empire. Another beast rises from the earth (v. 11), having the voice of a dragon but the horns of a lamb. This signifies the state of the Church of Rome governed by the pope. For it "does all that the first beast did," and "in his sight." It "gives breath to the image of the beast," reviving and putting into practice the dignity, authority, and tyranny of the ancient emperors. Thus Irenaeus long ago understood this chapter, saying that the number of the beast is contained in the word
Lateinos, which means a Latin—that is, a Roman.
Abbot Joachim, commenting on Revelation, writes: "Some who bear the appearance of the seat of God—that is, the catholic church—are made the seat of the beast, which is the kingdom of Antichrist, reigning everywhere in his members from the beginning of the church." Again he says, "We have by tradition from our fathers that Rome is spiritually Babylon." And again: "The merchants of the earth are the priests themselves, who sell prayers and masses for money, making the house of prayer a house of merchandise." He continues,
"We know that not only bishops and priests, but also abbots, monks, and those reputed religious, though they seem to be so, are entangled in the affairs of Babylon that they may grow rich."
Honorius speaks yet more plainly, declaring that the pope and his clergy are the very Babylon of the Apocalypse. The substance of his words is this: "Turn to the citizens of Babylon, and see what manner of men they are and by what streets they go. Behold her princes and judges—in them is the seat of the beast. Turn to the clergy—in them you will see the tent of the beast. Look upon the cloisters of monks— and in them you will find the tabernacles of the beast. Behold the houses of nuns—and you shall see in them a bed prepared for the beast."
From all this, the conclusion necessarily follows: Rome, governed by the pope, is a worshiper of idols. Yet some maintain that if learned
papists and Protestants could confer together, they would be found to differ not in substance but in circumstance. This is false—unless they can somehow make idolatry a mere circumstance.
A Second Reason That which is merely imagined in the mind is an idol. This is the express doctrine of Theodoret and Origen, who affirm that not only the carved images of imagined beings but even the imagined beings themselves—Titans, Sphinxes, Centaurs, men with dogs' heads, and such—are called idols.
Now I argue: the images which the Church of Rome declares to be representations of the true God and of Christ are, in fact, images of things that are not. For there is no such god who annexes His presence to carved or painted images, who hears and helps those who pray before them more than elsewhere, or who will be worshiped in or by images. If such a god exists, He has either revealed Himself or not. If He has, let the promise of His presence at such images be produced; let the command to worship Him by such means be shown. If neither can be proved—as indeed they cannot— the worship is vain, and the being worshiped is but a fiction of man's imagination.
In like manner, the image of the Virgin Mary is an image of a thing that is not. For there is no mother of Christ who is present with her image and hears the prayers of men and women there offered. No one on earth can, by sufficient reason, prove it so; yet for all our actions—especially those of religious worship—faith must be the ground.
A Third Reason To turn the glory of God into the image of a corruptible man is idolatry. This Paul demonstrates fully in Romans 1.
Now the papists represent God in the form of a man, and the learned among them defend it. One of their own says, "It is lawful to paint
God the Father in the likeness of an old man, and the Holy Ghost in the form of a dove." But such paintings change "the glory of the incorruptible God into the likeness of corruptible man."
Let Augustine speak: "We must not think," he says, "that God the Father is circumscribed by human shape, or that when we think of Him a right or left side should enter our mind. Nor, when it is said that the Father sits, must we imagine Him bending His knees, lest we fall into that sacrilege with which the apostle curses those who changed the glory of the incorruptible God into the likeness of corruptible man. For it is extreme wickedness that a Christian should set up such an image of God in a temple—much more wicked to set it up in his heart, where indeed is God's true temple, if it be cleansed from earthly desire and error." Furthermore, the Father never appeared in such a form; it was the Son who was manifested.
A Fourth Reason To invoke a senseless or inanimate creature is idolatry. Yet the Roman Church does this when it says, "All hail, O Cross, our only hope, in this time of the Passion; increase righteousness to the godly, and grant pardon to the guilty." If anyone says these words are directed to Christ, I reply that they are addressed to the wood of the cross itself. For the words immediately preceding in the hymn are these: "Blessed is that Cross on whose arms the price of the world was hung; it became the beam to weigh His body and seized the prey from hell."
A Fifth Reason The worship of God devised and established by man is, in effect, idolatry; for it is a worship that God abhors and rejects. He will be worshiped precisely according to His Word, without addition, subtraction, or alteration (Deuteronomy 4:2; 12:32).
The Worship of God in the Church of Rome Devised by Man The worship of God in the Church of Rome is devised and instituted by man. This may be clearly shown in five particulars.
I. The Invocation of Departed Saints Conclusion 1. For the first 350 years after Christ, there was no practice or acknowledgment of prayer to saints in the true church of God. Until two hundred years after Christ, the intercession of saints was utterly unknown, as is evident from the writings of Irenaeus,
Justin Martyr, Clement, and Tertullian. Around the year 240, Origen ventured to suggest the doctrine of the intercession of saints—but only as a private conjecture, not as public doctrine. Moreover, about three hundred years after Christ, the learned fathers argued against the Arians in this manner: Christ is invoked; therefore, Christ is
God. Such reasoning would have been absurd if prayer to saints had already been established.
Conclusion 2. Around four hundred years after Christ, Basil, Gregory of Nyssa, and Gregory Nazianzen gave further occasion to prayer for the dead. By rhetorical figure they sometimes addressed the departed, speaking to them as if present—after the manner of orators. These speeches may appear to be prayers but are, in fact, mere expressions of wish or remembrance. They even spoke in this way to the souls of the damned, such as Julian, and to things without life, as to the Passover. Furthermore, their words to saints were uncertain and hesitant: "Hear us, if you have any care for us—if any sense remains in you." And they assumed, rather than proved, that the saints were present to hear them.
Conclusion 3. The invocation of saints did not enter the public liturgy of the church until five hundred years after Christ. Augustine, writing about four hundred years after, says of public prayer: "We do not make gods of martyrs. Their names are recited by the priest, but no prayer is made to them." About the year 500, Petrus
Gnaphaeus, a heretic, is said to have first inserted the invocation of saints into public prayers. And Gregory the Great, about the year
600, brought prayers for the dead into the litanies of the Western Church.
II. Images of Saints Conclusion 1. There was no use of images among Christians— especially in their churches—for at least 370 years after Christ. The contrary cannot be shown.
Conclusion 2. Solitary images of God or of saints were not permitted in churches for any religious use until more than four hundred years after Christ. The contrary also cannot be shown.
Conclusion 3. Images set up in churches as "laymen's books" were not publicly worshiped until after six hundred years. Gregory the Great wrote to Serenus, bishop of Marseilles: "Because you have forbidden the worship of images, we praise you entirely; but because you have broken them, we reprove you." I say "publicly," because certain private persons and particular churches, after four hundred years, began superstitiously to adore the wood of the cross and its fragments. Yet this was a private corruption, not the act of the catholic church.
Conclusion 4. The public adoration of images was never authorized until the year 789, in the Second Council of Nicea. Before this time, nothing in the writings of the fathers supports religious worship of images beyond mere reverence or civil veneration. Moreover, the decision of that council lacked universality. For soon after, a Synod
at Frankfort—attended by Charlemagne and the legates of the bishop of Rome—condemned the Council of Nicea as heretical. Houedan, the English historian, records this: "Charles, king of the Franks, received a book of a synod sent him from Constantinople. In which book, alas, many things are found contrary to true faith—especially that, with the consent of nearly three hundred bishops of the East, it was decreed that images are to be worshiped. But this the church of God utterly curses. Against it, Albin wrote an epistle, marvelously confirmed by the authority of Scripture, which he brought to the king in the name of our bishops and princes."
III. Religious Worship One Conclusion. The distinction between latria (the worship due to God alone) and dulia (the service given to saints) was not known or received in the church until about four hundred years after Christ.
Augustine was among the first to use these terms, yet in another sense. He used latria to denote the worship prescribed in the first table of the law; and though he used dulia for honor greater than civil respect, he expressly denied it to saints. "We honor the saints with charity, not with service," he writes. Again, "Let not the worship of dead men be our religion." Let anyone produce, if he can, an author within five hundred years after Christ who ascribes dulia— in the sense of religious worship—to any mere creature.
IV. The Crucifix One Conclusion. Crucifixes were not in use until about four hundred years after Christ. I grant that the simple cross was used, but not the cross bearing the image of Christ. The testimonies of Justin Martyr, Lactantius, Minucius Felix, Tertullian, and Chrysostom are often cited to the contrary. Yet they speak only of the real crucifix—that is, of Christ Himself crucified upon His own cross
—not of the formed or carved crucifix. The Book of Visiting the Sick,
which mentions the painted crucifix, falsely bears the name of Augustine; it is a later counterfeit.
Metaphrastes reports that a crystal cross with the image of Christ appeared to Procopius the martyr, who was commanded to fashion one of gold and silver. He carried it into battle and, as it is said, gained victory over the Saracens. But this story is worthless, for Metaphrastes is a known fabulist. Yet even his tale reveals that in the days of Diocletian—around three hundred years after Christ—such crucifixes were not in use, for Procopius made one only by special revelation. It appears that crucifixes were not publicly received in the church until about seven hundred years after Christ. For then the Sixth Council of Constantinople, whose canons are genuine, commanded that the image of Christ be set up in place of the Agnus
Dei.
V. The Worship of Christ and His Image Conclusion 1. The adoration of the sacrament—or of Christ in, at, and under the form of bread, after the Roman manner—was unknown in the church of God for eight hundred years after Christ.
For transubstantiation, which is the foundation of that adoration, was not known or accepted by the learned until after that time. Let those of the Roman faith study until their heads and hearts ache— they will never be able to prove the contrary. Honorius III is said to have instituted this adoration about the year of our Lord 1220.
Conclusion 2 The worship called latria, or divine honor, was not given by the learned to the image of Christ in any form for a thousand years after His ascension—and even beyond. This the papists themselves see
and confess. Catharin writes, "Indeed, none of the ancients (as far as I have read and noted) ever said that images are to be worshiped with the worship of latria, but all detested such speech." Again, he says, "It is nowhere found in the ancient writers that an image, as an image, is to be adored with latria, but rather the contrary—that it is not to be adored. This was often protested in the answers of the bishops of the Seventh Synod, and in its decree most plainly; which,
I verily believe, never came to the hands of Thomas." Of the same judgment is Francis Suarez, the Jesuit, who likewise thinks that Thomas Aquinas never saw the acts of the Seventh Synod, that is, the Second Council of Nicea.
From what has now been said, it clearly appears that many chief parts of religious worship have been devised by men in the Church of Rome. Consequently, their worship is, in effect, idolatry. Yet, suppose for argument's sake that the worship of Rome were not idolatry; nevertheless, it is still corrupt and unsound, because it is subject to the possibility of idolatry—and that is enough to condemn it. The argument stands thus:
The true worship of God is not subject to the possibility of idolatry; for there can be no possibility of darkness in light, nor of evil in goodness. But the worship of God as practiced in the Roman Church is subject to such a possibility. For it is possible that the one who manifests his presence by signs, and hears the prayers offered before images, is the devil himself—and that he performs these things by satanic operation. There is no such danger in the sacraments or in the Word preached, because both are founded upon the express institution of God. Images, and the worship performed before them, have no such divine foundation.
Again, in the adoration of images, their own teachers prescribe three cautions: first, that no confidence be placed in the image; second, that we ask nothing of it; and third, that we ascribe to it no divinity.
Yet it is not only possible—but exceedingly common—that the common people neglect one or more of these cautions. Augustine
observes, "Who worships or prays before an image without being so affected as to think he is heard by it, and to hope that what he desires will be accomplished by it?" Again, he says, "The likeness of form and the counterfeit arrangement of lines lead on—and, by a weak and sickly affection, captivate—the frailer sort of men."
Moreover, it is possible that the priest himself fails in his intention during the consecration of the host—either through wandering thoughts, or by deliberate malice, or by neglecting some word or phrase of the formula. In that case, there is no valid consecration. If no consecration, then no transubstantiation; if no transubstantiation, then Christ is not adored, but rather a mere piece of bread is worshiped in place of the living God.
Further, it is possible that some of those who are worshiped as saints in heaven are, in truth, no saints at all, but damned souls in hell.
Jerome himself said, "We worship the bodies of many on earth whose souls are tormented in hell." Many of the images now venerated in the Church of Rome were at first invented, not to represent the persons of men, but spiritual mysteries, after the manner of emblems.
For example, the figure now called Saint Margaret, shown as destroying a dragon after being devoured by it, was originally a representation of the calling of the Gentile church—gathered by the preaching of the gospel out of the very jaws of the devil who once devoured them. Saint George on horseback was at first an emblem of Christ our Savior, who conquered the devil for the deliverance of His church. Saint Christopher—a mere fiction—was nothing more than a symbol of the Christian life, as his name itself declares.
Christopherus means "one who bears Christ," that is, who carries the name of Christ before men.
These and similar emblematic pictures, once designed to express divine mysteries, were in time mistaken for representations of actual saints and are worshiped to this day as such. To this may be added
that many relics are manifestly counterfeit, and that the feast of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary is of no better authority—for there is no certainty in history to prove such an assumption ever occurred.
Thus much, then, concerning the idolatry of our times.